Musk-Trump interview: Alleged DDOS attack on X derail start of conversation

CNN
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Former President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO and X proprietor Elon Musk hosted a pleasant dialog Monday on X after their interview was delayed by greater than 40 minutes resulting from technical difficulties.

The delay of the high-profile interview was the Trump marketing campaign’s newest stumble because it appears to regain momentum following the Democratic Get together coalescing round Vice President Kamala Harris. It additionally marked the second time Musk suffered a setback whereas making an attempt to launch a extremely attended X House with a presidential candidate.

The dialogue between the previous president and the richest man on this planet, who has endorsed Trump, marked Trump’s return to X after his account had remained dormant for practically a 12 months. The final time Trump had posted on the social media web site was when he posted his mugshot from being processed at an Atlanta jail within the Georgia election subversion case in August of final 12 months. Trump had gained round 900,000 new followers as of Monday night time since he began posting once more on the platform.

All through the dialog, Musk requested Trump softball questions that allowed the previous president to stay to his speaking factors, together with on immigration and the financial system. He repeated elements of his marketing campaign stump speech and was not challenged by Musk on any of his false claims.

The 2 males additionally heaped reward on one another, and Musk claimed, “I believe we’re at a fork within the street of future of civilization and I believe we have to take the fitting path and, and I believe you’re the fitting path.”

Trump stated Musk’s endorsement “meant quite a bit to me,” and added, “Not all endorsements imply that a lot, to be trustworthy. Your endorsement meant quite a bit.”

Musk at one level advised Trump ought to kind a brand new presidential fee targeted on “authorities effectivity” and appoint him to it. Trump instantly responded, “I’d like it.”

Trump and Musk started their dialogue with the previous president retelling intimately how he had survived the assassination try at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13. Trump mentioned how the shooter had been noticed by native police and rally attendees, and he praised the Secret Service for his or her response to the capturing.

Their dialog lined a broad array of matters — together with prolonged parts on vitality coverage, local weather change and the specter of nuclear warfare; immigration, with Trump promising the “largest deportation within the historical past of this nation”; federal authorities spending, with Musk proposing a fee to search for methods to make cuts; and extra.

Trump with out proof accused Democrats of a coup to take away President Joe Biden from the poll. He mentioned Harris’ look on a Time journal cowl and took jabs at Biden’s psychological state. He stated Jewish individuals who vote for Democrats ought to have their “heads examined.”

“We are able to speak about tunnels and rockets and electrical automobiles, so many issues. And now you’re into the AI, and that’s going to be one other magnificence,” Trump stated to Musk close to their dialog’s finish.

At a number of factors all through the interview, Trump’s speech sounded as if he had a lisp or was slurring his phrases, which attracted consideration on-line.

When requested whether or not there was a proof, Trump marketing campaign spokesman Steven Cheung stated, “Have to be your listening to.”

Harris’ marketing campaign described Trump and Musk as “self-obsessed wealthy guys” in an announcement.

“Trump’s whole marketing campaign is in service of individuals like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed wealthy guys who will promote out the center class and who can not run a livestream within the 12 months 2024,” Harris marketing campaign spokesman Joseph Costello stated.

When technical difficulties delayed the beginning of their dialog, Musk claimed a distributed denial-of-service assault had overwhelmed the corporate’s servers, but it surely was not instantly clear if unhealthy actors have been behind what Musk known as an “assault,” or whether or not the problem was merely brought on by too many customers making an attempt to hearken to the dialog.

“There seems to be an enormous DDOS assault on 𝕏. Engaged on shutting it down,” Musk stated in a submit on X. “Worst case, we’ll proceed with a smaller variety of stay listeners and submit the dialog later.”

“DDOS,” or distributed denial of service, is a typical assault technique by which hackers flood a website with phony site visitors to overwhelm its techniques and try and knock it offline.

Musk stated in a separate submit that X “examined the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier at present.”

The audio-only interview’s troubled begin was harking back to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ launch of his failed run for the Republican presidential nomination final 12 months. DeSantis tried to kick off his marketing campaign with a Twitter Areas occasion with Musk, however the occasion was delayed by 25 minutes and marred by technical difficulties that resulted in a a lot smaller viewers than the five hundred,000 who had initially tried to affix and pay attention.

Trump on the time mocked DeSantis’ botched launch, saying on his Fact Social web site that it was “a DISASTER!”

“His complete marketing campaign shall be a catastrophe,” Trump stated.

The Harris marketing campaign shared that Trump remark about DeSantis by itself Fact Social account when the previous president’s personal occasion with Musk was delayed Monday night time.

This story has been up to date with further info.